'Pain make man think. Thought make man wise. Wisdom make life endurable' : Sakini, in "The Tea House of the August Moon" by John Patrick, (1953)

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Betwa Sharma - One Year After His Arrest, Chandrashekhar Azad Is A Prisoner Of The Yogi Adityanath Govt. No trial or bail.

June 8, 2018 marks one
year since Chandrashekhar Azad, a rising Dalit leader in Uttar Pradesh, was
arrested and imprisoned by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state government. Azad was incarcerated
after a month-long cycle of caste violence had claimed the lives of two men, a
Dalit and a Rajput, and left dozens injured in and around Shabbirpur village in
Saharanpur district, last year. The 31-year-old was
held on several serious charges including rioting, attempt to murder, unlawful
assembly and looting, but he was granted bail by the Allahabad High Court on
November 2.

Justice Mukhtar
Ahmad said the charges were "politically
motivated." The same day, the Yogi
Adityanath government concluded that Azad's release would threaten public order
and national security, and hit him with preventive detention under the National
Security Act, 1980. The 31-year-old
lawyer, who also goes by the name Ravan, has been languishing in the Saharanpur
district jail, without access to bail or a trial. Over the course of the
past year, at least four Dalits, three in connection with the caste violence in
Saharanpur, and another Bhim army leader, have been placed under the NSA.
Preventive detention has not been invoked against any member of the upper-caste
Rajput (Thakur) community in connection with violence. Chief Minister Yogi
Adityanath hails from the Thakur community.

'He doesn't know
how to get out': Vinay Ratan Singh, who
was lodged at the Saharanpur district jail until last week, told HuffPost
India that Azad was suffering from a stomach and a throat infection,
and he was in acute pain over a bad tooth. "His tooth hurts
him a lot. He is in urgent need of surgery but all he is getting are some
medicines from the shop inside the jail," he said. Singh, who was also
arrested in connection with the caste violence in Saharanpur, was released on
bail, last week. He is the national president of the Bhim Army, an organization
founded by Azad in 2014 to work for the emancipation of Dalits. Singh, who spoke with
Azad in prison, said the Bhim army chief was staying in a cell by himself, in
an area the inmates call "tanahi," but he was holding out hope
for his release. "He says, 'If I
haven't done anything then how long can they keep me here. They will have to
release me eventually,'" said Singh. "We have known each other a long
time. I believe that this experience is only making him stronger."

In the past four
years, while the Bhim Army was setting up schools to educate children about the
Dalit movement, Azad had gradually ingratiated himself in the community. Young
Dalit couples in UP and Uttarakhand are even putting his photograph in their wedding cards. Even with his growing
clout in western UP, Azad had not run for political office. Until his arrest,
last year, his Army appeared to be focused on social activities. Ahead of the
crucial by-poll in Kairana, last month, Azad asked the "Bahujan Samaj"
to vote for Tabassum Hasan, the candidate of the united opposition, against the
BJP... read more: